rapturerebornmmorpgfandomcom-20200216-history
Part 146
Sitemap '--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ' YET More Fabulous Items/Ideas For a BioShock Rapture MMORPG '--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ' Part 146 --- --- --- --- --- --- Real News "106-year-old Antarctic fruitcake found, might be Edible" ' : So foodstuff in Rapture found in 'the ruins' could be sufficiently edible by 1970 when the Rapture Reborn MMORPG takes place. --- --- --- '''Secret Agents in Rapture (Columbia ?) ' : "Do you mind turning around while I take the elastic out of by underpants ?" (actual dialog from "Man From UNCLE" TV series). Well, Spy stuff was 'The Rage' all during the Sixties. Elastic bands and other goodies were invented by Rapture's time at least. Ryan was shown to be worried that the CIA or KGB might be infiltrating Rapture -- allegedly part of the writers 'proving' he was Paranoid, but actually if those Governments got wind of Rapture (and moreso its technologies - they '''VERY LIKELY WOULD be trying to get there). Its a shame, the stupidity and ignorance of the 'writers' these days that they ALREADY have forgotten/never-knew the realities of the Cold War. In Columbia there weren't exactly 'Spies', except for the Informants the Founder would use to keep the Untermenschen under their tyrannical thumb, and thus to snuff out any organized resistance (As in : Daisy Fitzroy would have been fingered (betrayed) by one of hundreds of bribed fellow denziens, and have been done-away-with (Saturday Night Hangings) right quick, and otherwise be severely hampered in any 'organizing' she allegedly might have done. - Of course IF the World Powers (spies) HAD got to Columbia (a quite plausible scenario in a majority of alternate realities), then the game's setting wouldn't have happened (never seceded, destroyed, everyone else had Floatyshit™ even better, etc...) --- --- --- Computers Era Computers Heavy Metal : pix Analytical Engine (Babbage's never-built mechanical computer monster) needs to be something less than 4 tonnes for it to work in a practical way, as for that improbable autopilot on that The Lady's Floater (or ANY of the Zeppies) ... (( '' You may have heard a machine of Babbage's was built, but that was the "Difference Engine", which is usable only for a very narrow/limited type of Calculation, and was NOT any kind of General Purpose Computer. He did have plans for a generalized computer, but THAT would be truly HUGE '' ))) A simple Vacuum Tube computer wouldn't be that much less cumbersome (except that it might work). Though for some 'Autopilot' with which you might "dial-in" a destination Longitude+Latitude is something only from military tech of the 1960s or even the 70s. (Likewise for the needed mechanisms that automatically track/determines your CURRENT position). Far too advanced They never mention Tear-stealing such from the far future. SO did Jeremiah Fink kidnap Dr Daystrom from the Duotronic Institute of Cygni Alpha 3 (Star Trek Universe...) to learn how to make such a device ? (Or is that 'Autopilot' just a fake (con job) mechanism used to dupe/impress inhabitants who aren't allowed to leave Columbia anyway ??? Nothing says that all these things actually worked - just had to SEEM to work for Fink to be paid and to get the Accolades he so desired (( '' He's kinda like the Sander Cohen of Columbia, isn't he ? '' )) Could have been one of the 'Handyman' type things -- some creepy midget/cripple trapped in a machine who knows how to use a sextant and has some maps 'handy' (as Bugs Bunny used to say "Eh, Its a Living..."). - I saw one of the modern-built (real) Difference Engines (an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions - used to generate encyclopedia sized 30+digit mathematical tables) actually working a few years ago at a Museum. That, of course, employs a SINGLE dedicated algorithm, and not a 'general Purpose' calculating machine like Babbage's proposed MUCH larger/complex Analytical Engine design would have been. It was also horribly slow (but still 3 magnitudes faster than a man manually doing the same calculating, and done WITHOUT mistakes). Note- that particular machine WAS NOT capable of doing the required Navigational Calculations, but something of that type might have been made similar for that task (would probably then weigh about 25 tonnes). Later Analog type computing mechanism existed, but were more like calculators far from being 'automatic' -- where you merely 'dial-in' destination coordinates. (( '' But what do a bunch of hack fantasy game writers care about realities of such things when they can simply use their magic 'Quantumz' as a crutch ?? '' )). --- --- --- A Game Too Far : Really there should have been a moment when Booker steps back and thinks : "I am really laying on the floor in my own vomit having a Fever Dream from that bad Patent Toothache medicine ..." That being actually honest to explain all that rubbish science/history/religion/society seen in the game. (A simple 'Twist' any idiot could use to justify all manner of really bad writing ...) Excuses ?? Unfortunately the problem with a big public promotional campaign's touting a game they really can't produce/deliver (like Infinite BS had), is it makes the Parent Company look like fools, and THAT prevents them from "Pulling The Plug" before wasting yet more millions on the botched game. --- --- --- Electric Age (REAL WORLD) ' : In 1893, Westinghouse and Tesla, using 160000 lightbulbs and polyphase AC (powered by 12 1,OOO-horsepower generators), lit up the Chicago Exposition - "CITY OF LIGHT". Tesla had a large display including phosphorescent lighting (a precursor to fluorescent lamps) powered without wires by his high-frequency fields. The "Egg of Columbus" was a demonstration of how an AC electric motor worked (yes this was real). IMO, Tesla Coil powered stuff might have been a better 'scientificky' FANTASY basis for whatever plot (Was there really the need for the faux-quantum weirdness Time Travel, et al ... ?? ) They barely scratched the 'Tear' multiverse possibilities (certainly for the game play), so why even bother with it ?? (( '' Hey Ken, If you are going to do Magic shit anyway, don't try to describe it too much - its just makes you look stupid, instead of clever. '' )) Tesla Coli (the electric bacteria) might've been the threat brought back thru a 'Tesla Portal' and which threatened the world of electricity. Franklin knew the 'cure', but he was well over a century dead - his secret dying with him ... yada yada... (need to find that secret archive ... yada). Hinted that Franklin was actually an Alien, etc ... With real Tesla Coils, electric power is transmitted through the air as a high frequency magnetic field, so people/vehicles/homes/etc could carry a receiving coil to power any old electric thing you wanted. People could be walking lightshows (that woulda Wowed-Em with rather-easy-to-make game special effects ...). Electric EVERYTHING -- even 'Levitation' (as long as BIG magnets were under you (streets paved with the stuff) and serve to repulse force the Tesla-coil powered magnets within the floaty things/vehicles). Instead of 'Gear' you would get 'Gadgets' to do all the pseudo-magic stuff (no longer limited by that odd magic 'clothing' idea) - and maybe (strange idea) allowing NPCs to actually also use that 'Gadget' stuff to make the combat more unpredictable/interesting. You can still have your electrically 'insulated' rubber pants, if you must. - If you can float with "Quantum Mechanics", then you could Float with some make believe abilities of a "Tesla Coil" (which also might, for a wonderful Fantasy plot, rip holes in the universe and allow Time Travel. Fantasy, after all, means never having to stick to real Science). Its a FACT that Tesla, in many of the infinite universes, destroyed Evil Columbia with his Death Ray. In at least one, he was merely a Penguin (infinite possibilities, you see...). AND Like magnetic fields, you have 'positive' and 'negative' (in opposition) which could serve the plot somehow symbolically or whatever (opposites attract, etc... Good vs Evil, whatever). See how easy it is -- without employing that 'too explained' quantum bullshit (which is little more than hype-buzzwords to most everyone anyway). ' " Tarnation... it be magnetz!!! Makes sense, rightly so. Yep. Now, back to the slaughterin', lynchin and splodey stuff. Yeehaw !!! " ''' --- --- --- '''Soda in Rapture Would Be In Bottles : They're Recyclable you know -- you actually just cleaned them back then ... (steel cans take alot of resources). Why would Soda be shown to be Imported (Contraband), when much more valuable and lucrative items would better serve Fontaine's limited cargo capacity of his smuggler subs ??? (Just Lazy thoughtless ignorant designers ?? Harder for them to make a recognizable 'Packet of Heroin' Asset ???) Smuggling in just the Syrup might be a bit more practical (They can make fricken ADAM Plasmids, so soda water should be really easy ... Even the know-nothing gamewriters might manage something like that). Just picking up stuff at the trading post on Iceland ??? No. Fontaine's Smuggling would have to be a bit more organized than that. Unfortunately, it is a case of general lack of knowledge on the game writers part that they thought mostly of historic Bootleggers, smuggling booze to a hundred million Americans, as their model. That, instead of what really could ONLY BE a small operation, smuggling luxuries. The overhead costs of such Rapture smuggling are substantial, and the whole operation isn't worth the 'Crime Penalty' risk, unless it made a substantial profit. Beyond the writers/designers understanding, I guess. - Never clarified : Why Commit the crime of Smuggling when you could ship the same stuff into Rapture legally - BEFORE the isolation (~1952 ??) Limits on imports in the earlier period weren't really talked about (and NO you're not gonna have 'self-sufficiency' while the population is still adjusting and organized itself that first 5 years.) Ryan's "I make only One Law" - No Smuggling ... WHEN did that happen?? (Probably around time of that isolation starting, and THAT doesn't give Fontaine much time to build that fortune he needed to build his ADAM industry). --- --- --- A Streetcar Named Somethingorother : Advantage of a Trolley/Tram system - lots of stops are possible along the routes, not the just some (necessitated) heavy-weight extensive/complex stations required for the 'Bathyspheres', and similarly which the AE Train system needed in their operations. The Trolley stops can be anywhere along their tracks (because they are all inside), and doing that take very little time - people get off and on and then the vehicle is on its way again (those other systems see - you have to wait for the big airlocks to cycle - both coming and going). --- --- --- Self-Heating Dinners (Which didn't quite work) : Several apartments were burnt out in accidents. Product Withdrawn. The reality : That in the Real World there are ALOT of ideas that just don't work out (or aren't so easily made to work). Just because there is freedom to 'try', doesn't mean it automatically succeeds. Like in the (our) Real World, there would be 'fads'. But similarly, if they aren't all that useful, they eventually fall by the wayside. The time of Rapture (late 40s and 50s) was when marketing was changing also (media allowed advertisements to reach mass audiences quickly for mass sales of single products). --- --- --- --- --- . . . .